After Padgett’s season, we lost all of those players (Q, Spalding, Adel), and didn’t bring in a single recruit because it was too late in the game. Mack inherited a team last year with significantly less talent than Padgett’s.
We had to rely on the GT market last year, and have our best remaining players return plus stellar recruiting class to have a squad talented enough to compete for the ACC title. Which as the OP pointed out, was not done by either of Mack’s predecessors.
Gotta give credit where it’s due. DJ, Fresh, and Williamson are valuable to this team and the players that were already here when Mack got here have all shown improvement (Nwora, McMahon, Sutton, Williams).